If a major player offered a PSO route it would be well utilized for onward and outward connections to and from Cornwall.
conrnishsimon as we both know, there is no real possibility that BA will fly you to LHR before Hell freezes over. NQY was brought into commercial use on the back of a bubble. Which burst.
It's not RAF St Mawgan anymore with the MOD picking up the bill. Air Southwest have gone away, flybe remain only on a taxpayer subsidy and the operating costs of such an enormous airfield for such a tiny proportion of flights is only ever going to increase losses.
How much would we have to pay BA so that rather than operate an off peak to Europe, they should nip across to Cornwall in wintertime? The market won't support it, it's simply not there in real volume and yield. Newquay is highly seasonal and geared towards tourism, I flew the Ryanair Stansted which did OK but was unsustainable, flybe have found the same at Gatwick. Not enough people paying enough money to make it viable.
All of the comparisons with days past are interesting but they're from a time when you could book GLA-EDI on an Air UK 146 or LHR-BHX/EMA on a British Midland ATP. Those days are never coming back, ever. Is there any airport in the short haul network BA serve even close to a market this small? BA couldn't make a thrice daily Dash 8 work, then they failed with a daily B737 on leisure, in summer! How big is the NQY-LHR-JFK market these days?
What's the ROI on said LHR slot? Does anyone really think there's a business case here to do this? It would have to be an A319 as BA are not allowed to fly anything Brazilian out of LHR and LGW. A twice daily A319 offers more seats than the
entire current throughput of Newquay Airport.
Eg Newquay - say Dubai, a logical destination for connections.
Genuine question, how many people do this route per year?